Page 33 of Girl Betrayed

“Then I’ll offer my services to the Department of Justice.”

“The hell you will. You’re still on leave after your last case, and if you even think about throwing your hat in the ring with the DOJ I’ll tell them you’re not mentally fit to return to duty.”

“Jenks—”

“Don’t Jenks me! It’s not gonna happen. Even if you could manage to talk your way into this, they’ll boot you the second they find out your history with Hayes.”

“Then tell me what to do, Jenks! Because the star witness in this case is Claire, and I’m not throwing her in a room with the DOJ if I don’t have a seat at the table.”

Jake watched his mentor’s face pale. “Claire witnessed the murder?”

“Yes,” he pulled his notebook from his pocket. “She repressed it, but her therapist helped her remember and I got it all right here.”

“Jake, if you don’t hand that over, it’s obstruction of justice.”

“You think I don’t know that? It’s why I’m trying to cement myself in the investigation.”

She shook her head. “It’s too late. Metro has 24 hours to turn the investigation over to DOJ. Hartwell’s overseeing the evidence transfer. You need to give him Claire’s witness account.”

“In exchange for what?” Jake demanded.

“Good faith.”

Jake fumed. “That’s not enough.”

“It’s gonna have to be this time, Jake. I worked this thing with Hartwell from ground zero. You know everything we do. DOJ has got this buttoned up tighter than a gnat’s ass.” Jenkins stepped between Jake and Hayes’s lifeless body, silently sliding the drawer back into the refrigerated core and shutting the locker. “Jake, it’s time to let this go.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Get back to having a life?”

“Is that what you’d do?”

Jenkins gave him her patenteddon’t test meglare. She used it on him so much in his youth that he and Wade coined it ‘the look’. “No, Jake. I don’t have a life to get back to because I never knew when to stop putting the job first.”

Jake cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “You realize you’re asking me to do something you couldn’t.”

“Okay, you don’t wanna go home to Dana and Claire, fine, but I’m pretty sure there’s something else that should be higher on your priority list than picking a fight with a dead man. And from what I hear, you don’t have a lot of time to make good on your word to your uncle.”

“Wade told you?”

“Of course, Wade told me. That man never met a thought he didn’t share.”

Jake smirked. “He sure loves the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he?”

This time it was Jenkins who grinned. “Don’t I know it. He tells me everything. Even the things I don’t wanna know.”

“Do you think I should do it?”

“What I think isn’t relevant.”

It was Jake’s turn to give Jenkins ‘the look.’ “Since when?”

“Fine. I get your reservations. After what your father put you through, I’d have them, too. But this isn’t about us. If Wade says this is what Helen needs, trust him.”

Jake threaded his hands behind his head and exhaled, suddenly drained. “It’s that simple?”

“It can be.”